Strike Witches Episode 01 - Magical Girl

Today's blog is up late for reasons totally not involving completing the end of Bioshock Infinite. Shut up, it's a thing I haven't been able to do until now but at least that part of my life is over and I can move on.

Right. So today, I'll be going over a show I tried to watch and utterly gave up on. Why? Well... you'll see why. I figure I need a short break from Sailor Moon though, so this will work for the interim, and it will also keep me from doing That Other Show. Because seriously, screw that festering pile of shit.

So I'm replacing one crappy show for another. What in the hell am I doing with my life?

By all rights, Strike Witches is the kind of show I should love. It has everything! It has little girls with magic powers, sweet mecha designs, awesome air combat, explosions, and some serious freaking military hardware. So it should've been a really awesome show, right?

The year is 1939. And there is a giant freaking hole in the sky. Someone should do something about that.

Yeah, that's a big friggin' hole in the sky dude.

So clearly, the smartest thing to do is send a bunch of German Luftwaffe planes into the big swirly thing in the sky shooting bullets at it. Then it responds with... well, just look for yourself.

They came to fly planes, obviously.

The story goes that after that point, these things started just flying around bombing the ever-loving shit out of people, because it was fun or something. Nobody really knows because there's no way to talk to these things. Okay, cool. So you just called them Neuroi. Possibly because the developers were Neurotic individuals or something I dunno. Moving along.

This weapon is called the Triforce. Also grants Wisdom,
Power, and Courage.

Of course humanity can't be totally screwed, they need to come up with a way to combat this new threat, because that is kind of what we do. A bunch of old guys standing in front of a blackboard came up with the idea to make: the Striker unit.

Hold on. Magic is real? So why bother with planes and shit?

They describe it as a "new type of magic broom".

... so why didn't they just use A MAGIC BROOM?

Right, then everyone decides to send all of their Witches over to the UK, since it would seem that the Brits are the only ones who have any clue as to what is going on in the world. Yeah, that's not heavy-handed at all guys. There, the 501st Joint Fighter Wing was born, known as the Strike Witches. Cue super-moe intro.

No, seriously, super moe. It has little girls making tofu and everything. Also, when they use their magic powers, they suddenly grow ears and tails and shit.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THIS SHOW. WHAT. HOW DOES ANY OF THAT MAKE SENSE, EXACTLY?

Okay, so when the show starts up, you see this girl with an eyepatch lift it up and she's all SIGHT BEYOND SIGHT, and I guess has some sort of Lion-o demon-eye-looking thing that lets her see the enemy. Cool. She also has a katana. Wow.

You look seriously uncomfortable there.

Then she tells her team where the enemy is, they fly over top of it, and prepare to beat the ever-living crap out of it. Stupid alien threats.

Overkill? No such thing.

So they are literally using everything from rockets to anti-material rifles to chainguns to try and bring this thing down. Which begs the question: I thought Magic was the only way to fight these things? Because from the looks of things, you're basically just putting a bunch of young girls in a dangerous position simply because it is not cost effective to keep sending planes at things to be shot down. Christ.

So these girls get right up in this thing's face, and eventually, they reveal a core. Which means they have to hit its weak point for massive damage. With a Katana.

Cue title slide, enter new scene: a peaceful island in the middle of friggin' Nowhere, Japan.

At least I assume it's Japan. Yokosuka sounds like a
Japanese name. Because it IS.

So there's this girl's school, and the dress code for this school is: no pants for anyone, ever.

No, seriously. No pants for any for the girls. They wear normal fuku tops, but they're all just kind of going with swimsuit pantie bottoms. Enter the main character, a young girl named Yoshika who is climbing a tree to save a kitten. Because that's what all great protagonists do in anime. She will not be dissuaded by the fact that she is not wearing pants, she is going to save that cat no matter what. She will also ignore all of the properly-aimed camera angles that show us her incredibly-defined ass and crotch. Expect a lot of that from this show. Because it is chock full of it.

Give yourself any random scene. Battle in the clouds? Expect .3 seconds of suddenly crotch-shot. Because it is a thing. That. Just. Keeps. Happening.

So the girl slips and nearly falls, but then she decides to just hug the tree and crawl along, until she can reach the kitten, until the tree branch just up and snaps. She is fortunate that the back of her shirt caught on something, because now she's sitting there, holding a cat, dangling in the air until someone else helps her.

Oh god. It begins. Also, ass-shot number three as she just kind of waggles around helplessly in the air.

You should have thought this through a little more.

So she gets yelled at for putting her life in danger for no reason. But she wanted to save the kitty! Of course, a noble deed. How the hell did it get up there in the first place anyway? It needed to climb a sheer cliff face just to get to that branch. Whatever.

No, no, no. Shut up. That is not a grown-up motivation.

Then some old geezer comes by with a cart of melons and a makeshift motorized cart to take them home. Along the way, they spot the battlecruiser that's just docked with their tiny little island. For what possible reason I can't even bother to guess. I suppose they needed some way to move the plot forward.

This prompts our heroine to go, "A ship for war? I don't like that." Well, that's understandable, war is a shitty thing and nobody really likes it. Except crazy people. But there's something about her dad leaving when she was six to go fight a war, and never coming back I'm guessing.

Well, at least he's leaving for a good reason. Aliens.

He promises to be with her forever when he gets back and this war is over. Oh, also, she has some kind of awesome power just like her mother and grandmother. So just keep that in mind because they're about to blow your friggin' minds, because he tells her to become a great person and protect everyone with that very same power.

Three years after he left, she got a bag of his stuff and a letter, and that was it. That's a pretty big downer, yeah, and a little heavy on the exposition, but they need to explain her deep-seated dislike of war. Which is understandable, because again, war is a shitty thing. Oh, also she's being spied on by some military dudes. One of whom is wearing pants. But he's allowed, because he's a guy.

Then eyepatch girl is revealed to be Major Sakamoto. She's probably like, 14, likes reading and music, and blowing up aliens for fun. Oh, and she is totally interested in our heroine. Then the driver of the cart panics due to an animal on the road, and everything goes flying and the Major freaks out and now the jeep is coming down the road since this could be SERIOUS FOLKS.

She's fine, but her friend, on the other hand, looks to be seriously injured.

That looks serious. You may want to see a doctor.

So her best friend rips off her shirt (revealing that they are all wearing the traditional Japanese school swim unitard underneath) and proceeds to magic her back to health. Just in time for the military folks to show up to witness the incredibly powerful magic taking place. Clearly, this girl has no idea what she's doing, but with the help of the Major, she can do this thing. Because magic is the kind of thing you should probably know how to actually use before you just straight up try to use it?

So her advice is, "control the magic."

...... CONTROL THE FRIGGIN' MAGIC. What wonderfully sage advice this is. CONTROL THE MAGIC, WELL GEE THANKS, I WAS THINKING OF JUST LETTING IT DO ITS THING. THANKS FOR THE INSIGHT CHIEF.

Then she passes out and winds up in a clinic. Her mom's clinic, where she's finishing the work, along with her grandmother, because the little one still doesn't know what the hell she's doing.

Fox ears run in the family.

Then the magic is over and she gets lectured. If you don't learn how to magic, you're going to kill yourself. So learn how to magic before trying to magic. But she seems reluctant to learn despite the promise she made to her father...? Wait, now I'm just confused. Anyhow, the Major seems to approve of her desire to help people, and decides to have a little chat. Because if she learns to use that power, she could be a really great Witch.

She introduces herself as Major Mio Sakamoto. So now I'll just call her Mio. Despite having no clue how to use her power, the Major is impressed, and wants her to join in the fight against the Neuroi. Which kind of throws everybody off.

This is where the story starts to really grate on my nerves. Because the military is an evil thing, and she wants no part of it.

I can understand pacifism, really, I can. But this is where it just goes to all sorts of hell.

Yoshi, however, fully intends to take over the clinic when she graduates from school. Which is understandable, except that it actually goes against everything she ever promised her father, who just wanted her to help people. So by actively denying her powers to the military, who are fighting an alien entity that threatens the entire world, she's kind of dropping the ball here.

But Mio decides not to press too hard, not expecting her to just come along immediately, and tells her to come to the port when she decides to join up. Okay, still reasonable, right?

A war that some alien douche started, yes.

So she declares that she will never join in a thousand years, and next day gets a letter from her father. They open it up, and inside are some photos of him working on the Striker project. With little Mio right beside him.

What a tweeeeeest.

Obviously, the only course of action is to go to the port to meet with this other girl, who basically tries to draft her without saying a word, and takes her on the battleship even after hearing that Yoshi has no intention to enlist. She just wants to know about those photos.

Is her father alive? Who knows? Mio doesn't, but Yoshi has the gall to ask her to take her to Britannia, because her father must be alive somewhere if she's getting mail from him suddenly, right?

Does it occur to nobody that the photos were just a little too well-timed here? So Mio slaps her on the shoulder hard and says they'll be casting off tomorrow. At which point, Yoshi makes me want to punch her little face in with a brick.

Every time you say this, my eye twitches more.

Right. So you just want these people to take you where you want to go to meet with your father, because of what he did. But you don't want to go to war. Much like climbing that tree, I don't think that you are thinking this through very well. Or at all.

Yet, somehow, she still manages to get aboard the ship, leaving her family behind simply because she wants to know what the deal with her father is about. That is one of the weakest motivations I've ever seen in a character. Not because she is pursuing it, but because she is doing jack shit to deserve it. They are literally giving her a free ride, just because.

And now we get to hear what Britannia is like. It's the front lines. The Neuroi have totally taken it over, and they need to take it back. Guess where this ship is going? Straight to hell. So she needs to know if her father is the only motivation to go. To which Yoshi replies, "I want to help the wounded, and the sick. I want to use my power to help many people!"

Because she promised her father. So she asks if there's anything she can do. Like cleaning or laundry. So that is exactly what winds up happening. Here comes a montage of her doing everything, including cleaning the flight deck. Eventually, Mio is all "yo, stay there girl, I got something to show you."

Truth be told I think she just wants to show off.

So she goes all flying off with the power of magic and a giant machine gun, flying around the fleet because clearly she'll be able to see you from three miles away. This obviously impresses the young girl, who is clearly impressed by how cool she looked flying around. Then comes the pitch: Strike Witches! Oh, and your dad made these leg things. Cool huh?

Because these are so much better than planes with guns.

So everyone in the world owes her dad who was a pretty cool guy. So no pressure, want to try these things on kid?

Interestingly enough, she declines. Her reason, however, is just plain infuriating.

AFJE{IT_H@#$(MF_#I JH_*@#TOK$TJ

GO DIE IN A FIRE YOU STUPID BRAT.

Now we get to see some other members of the team sunbathing on an island as some other other members show up. Oh, and we also meet the only girl who will ever wear pants in this entire show. EVER. Mark my words.

I guess pants are expensive for girls or something.

Then they start talking about lazing around and showing off boobs and stuff, and nobody actually gives a crap. Then the air raid siren comes and boy oh boy, guess it's time for plot to happen.

Back on the ship, they're about a half day away from the base, and Yoshi is getting tired of being on a ship for a month. Be patient kid, you're getting a free ride from the military, and they never do shit like that just on a whim. Then Mio notices an incoming enemy, and everything goes to hell as it goes all Evangelion up in this house.

Yoshi gets to see her first Neuroi, and is told to take shelter in the sickbay while grown ups take care of combat shit. Because, y'know, aliens give exactly zero shits about whether you want to fight or not. To be continued.

No, seriously, that's the end of the episode, and I already want to drown this brat in a tub. Because YOU ARE A FREAKING IDIOT WHO SHOULD JUST BURN.

I'm sorry. It's a bit early for me to get riled up about this. But I take serious issues with a character who is all "oh no war is bad" when SOMEONE IS TEARING YOUR SHIT UP FOR NO REASON. It's like, "hey, this dude is kicking people around, but you don't want to fight because you don't believe in fighting."

Just because you join the military doesn't mean you have to kill people. There's plenty of other things you can do. ESPECIALLY IF HEALING MAGIC IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS.

Now go kill yourself kthxbai.